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Publication Date: May 8, 2001
OK, Let's Get Started
OK, enough of this ignoring the postseason, although I'm still going to be paying most of my attention to the conference races this weekend myself. This week I want to take a first look at some projections for regional hosts, since they'll be announced on Monday, and take a first guess at who will get the #1 seeds. There's still around 10% of the season left, so a lot can still change, but most of this will be right.
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National #1 Seeds and Hosts
Without further ado, here's my prediction for the eight national #1 seeds, all of whom I think will get to host a regional:
Team Polls RPI ISR Fullerton 4/2/1 1 1 Miami, Florida 1/3/4 2 8 Notre Dame 5/4/2 11 28 Stanford 6/7/6 3 2 LSU 7/9/8 4 15 Nebraska 2/1/5 18 9 Southern Cal 3/5/3 8 3 Georgia 18/12/11 6 12
The only one of these that I think may not host is Nebraska, because I'm not sure what they've worked out with their stadium situation. My understanding is that they hope to have their new stadium ready for a super-regional, but that they've bid to host a regional at their old stadium, which may be judged unacceptable by the NCAA. Working in their favor is that holding a regional at Nebraska would probably count toward the Northern quota.
Georgia is the only one of these likely to not be a national #1 seed; they will have to finish first in the SEC regular season and perform well in the conference tournament to hang on to this spot. If they slip, that spot will most likely go to either Tulane or Rice.
Other #1 Seeds
The #1a seeds, as I like to call them:
Team Polls RPI ISR Tulane 8/6/10 16 7 Rice 9/11/12 21 5 East Carolina 12/10/9 7 19 Florida State 11/15/7 10 16 Tennessee 14/16/16 5 11 Georgia Tech 10/13/14 19 32 South Carolina 15/24/21 9 18 Central Florida 13/8/18 31 42
These are obviously much shakier at this point. Tulane, Rice, FSU, and Tennessee are fairly certain. East Carolina is quite likely, barring a major collapse. The TAAC champion will get a #1 seed; right now that's slightly more likely to be UCF, but could be Stetson almost as easily. The fourth place SEC team will get a #1 if it's South Carolina or Mississippi. Georgia Tech is the shakiest of these, because they're currently in fourth in their conference. They need to finish strong to hang on to this spot.
Although there are no likely #1 seeds as bad as, say, Rutgers was last year, there are a couple of teams here that are likely candidates for quick exits. Notre Dame is not at all a bad team (it's not that far from #28 to #15), but they're being badly overrated by the polls and the RPI this year, so if you're a #2 that's probably where you want to be sent. The TAAC champion and Georgia Tech, if they get the #1, may also run into trouble.
The other contenders:
Team Polls RPI ISR Baylor 17/18/22 20 13 Clemson 16/17/13 25 47 Arizona State 19/19/15 23 14 Stetson 20/20/19 29 44 South Alabama 21/21/26 28 34 Pepperdine 22/14/17 34 6 Mississippi 23/22/20 15 21 Wake Forest 24/23/24 17 37
The Other Eight Hosts
Florida State Tennessee Georgia Tech Ohio State Rice Tulane Central Florida South Carolina
FSU, Tennessee, OSU, and Rice I'm fairly comfortable with. The TAAC regular season champion will host, I think, and UCF holds the tie-breaker going into the weekend. Tulane has facility problems but deserves to host; I'm hoping the committee will do the right thing. South Carolina has to finish at least tied with Ole Miss; they have better facilities and will win a head-on comparison. Georgia Tech has the cost advantage (it's a whole lot cheaper to get to Atlanta than to Starkville, for example) but still has the same issues I mentioned above with the #1 seed to deal with.
There are all sorts of things that the committee could take into consideration to throw this off. They could decide to take the money and run, in which case Texas and Mississippi State could move into the mix. They could decide they don't want three Florida regionals, in which case the TAAC team probably gets left out, although a weak finish by FSU could hurt them instead. The mix I've got, though, gives them three Northern sites and three Western sites for a change, so I think that make work out.
The hosting announcement will be made Monday afternoon. Next week, I'm going to do a full conference tournament preview and tournament field prediction. I'll try to get that published by Tuesday morning so you can look it over before the conference tournaments start, so come by early.
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